Aerobo, the drone cinematography company that has produced work for major Hollywood films like “The Greatest Showman,” “A Quiet Place,” and “Fate of the Furious,” now has epic plans to democratize its work and make their complex aerial drone shots available to even novice pilots.

Aerobo today launched a game-changing, augmented reality software for drones called Vermeer, a product that enables your drone to execute highly complex aerial shots that otherwise would have taken pilots hundreds of hours of drone piloting experience.

A screenshot from the new Vermeer app

Here’s how Vermeer’s priority technology works: the creator designs a shot in the augmented reality environment by using basic hand movements to navigate their phone through a 3D environment. That gives them the ability to create far more complex flight patterns than they might be able to execute had they flown by hand. That information is then parlayed to the drone, which actually pulls off the shot you designed in real life — all 100% autonomously.

The app is currently being offered for iOS as a beta product “to ensure that the full release will benefit from plenty of feedback and will be built around the problems of real people,” according to a statement from Vermeer.

The app works for all iOS devices that support ARKit (iPhone 7, iPhone SE, iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, iPhone X and iPad Pro) and is compatible with most of DJI’s drones, including the Phantom 4, Phantom 4 Professional, Phantom 3 Professional, Phantom 3 Advanced, Inspire 2, Mavic Pro and Mavic Air.

Aerobo launched three years ago as a team of engineers, filmmakers, and creative problem solvers. During that time, they experimented in a handful of drone-related areas, ranging from building a 4.4-pound drone equipped with a parachute that could deploy in the case of an emergency, to a drone catch rig that enables filmmakers to mix an aerial and ground shot in the same sequence.

Check out Aerobo's newest drone, announced today! It's 4.4 pounds, and includes parachutes that can deploy. pic.twitter.com/vgeYmspb2f

Their latest product, the Vermeer augmented reality software, has been in development for about 18 months. Vermeer says the software is targeted at filmmakers, but future applications range across multiple verticals, including real estate, construction, industrial inspection, and insurance.

Filmmaking is far and away the No. 1 use case for drones. 48% of all drone use (hobby and professional) and 35% of the professional market reported using drones for film, photo or video purposes, according to the Skylogic Research 2018 Drone Market Sector Report.

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Drone Girl: I think your readers would like to learn about how to produce non-traditional (non-linear/non-parallel) drone flight paths to a) fly curved flight paths offering a more dramatic/diverse view perspective while b) mitigating the well known SfM doming (elevation) error. Google “Gently Curved, Convergent, Non-traditional Drone Flight Paths” to find out how to construct curved drone flight paths. i will introduce a new waypoint generator for these curved flight paths in the near future.